New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened to the public in its current Frank Lloyd Wright building on October 21, 1959.
The museum had previously operated as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in rented premises. Its permanent home was commissioned by Solomon R. Guggenheim and developed with artist and adviser Hilla Rebay, who promoted abstract art as the institution’s original focus.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiral design took many years to complete. Guggenheim died in 1949, and Wright died in 1959, several months before the building opened. The museum therefore opened after both its principal patron and architect had died.
The building’s opening date is sometimes confused with the year construction began or with 1952, when the museum adopted the Guggenheim name. The completed building became one of New York’s most recognizable examples of twentieth-century architecture and later received landmark and UNESCO recognition.